Gymnastics
- The event finals were the first time that the gymnastics crowd seemed anything other than supportive of all of the athletes. It was amazing to see two Brazilian men medal in the Floor event final, but when they were in second and third positions with one competitor left to go, the crowd actually booed during Sam Mikulak’s floor routine. Okay: if you boo at a hockey game you might get angry looks, but if you boo as someone is about to run and do several flips that require perfect timing, you might cause that person to break his neck. Not a good scene.
- As a corollary to that, Thomas “roll-out” skills (when a gymnast does a double flip (1.75 flips if you want to be technical) with multiple twists, but instead of landing on his feet essentially lands into a forward roll) are no longer allowed in men’s gymnastics as of next year (they’ve been banned in women’s gymnastics for at least 35 years, since Elena Mukhina was paralyzed while training one).
- I’m not at all opposed to the ban on Thomas roll-out saltos; even seeing Max Whitlock land his slightly off–but ultimately with no damage done–and how dazed he looked afterwards was enough to convince me. A skill that has caused multiple neck injuries in the course of the time people have been attempting it seems like too obvious a danger to ignore…
- …but, as one of the non-gymnast commentators (not Al; thank goodness for NBC’s streams that allowed me to enjoy my Olympics Trautwig-free) said, look at all of the other things they’re doing! As in–gymnastics is a dangerous sport, period. We saw French gymnast Samir Ait Said break his leg–gruesomely–vaulting; injuries are common in gymnastics. But there’s a clear distinction to be made between danger that’s inherent to the sport (built into it almost unavoidably like concussions seem to be built into football for some positions), life-threatening, and chronic–the type of danger that should be mitigated against and banned–and danger that is possible but avoidable or extremely rare, and which is not life threatening. Alt Said’s injury was horrific, but was never going to end his life. There’s nothing about the particular vault he was doing that frequently leads to that type of injury, the way that Thomas saltos have historically led to neck injuries. I wouldn’t advocate for a bubble-wrapped world in which no one took physical risks, but allowing that Olympic gymnasts may end up with chronic–but not life-threatening–arthritis, or several serious broken bones/torn ligaments over the course of their careers, is quite different from accepting an inherent risk of brain damage or paralysis.
